Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

Walking

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I didn’t have the opportunity to take the dogs for their walk on lunch yesterday, which meant we walked them around the block last night.

Delilah is on the thirty footer, no doubt about it.  On the thirty footer she has a little of the freedom that Sampson has, but I still maintain control.   I work her pretty hard on that leash, practicing for when we approach the dogs.  I let her sniff off to the side, then I say “This way” or “Come here pretty,” and let her make her own choice.  And last night she did, over and over again.

Last night the neighborhood dogs weren’t outside, but I would still say our walk was successful and truthfully I kind of prefer working Delilah without that added distraction.  She did try to wander close to the dog’s yard, looking for trouble but I had made sure I had treats to help distract and reward her.

We decided the dogs should wear their reflective vests when we walk them at night.  I discovered that my little point and shoot doesn’t do so well in the dark but I did manage a couple of pictures.

That tiny speck in the distance is Delilah

Sampson and Delilah getting their 'sniff' on.

Who's been peeing on my pole?

I also wanted to mention a sad bit of news I came across today.  A wonderful woman who rescues and helps many dogs, lost five of her fur babies in a fire last week.   If you’d like to send her a message here is the link to her blog.

What's Your Sleep Number?

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Every night around 9 PM the dogs get their stuffed Kongs, after about 20 to 25 minutes of working at them, Hubby and I will offer to help, because sometimes those baby carrots get stuck together and they can’t work them out. 🙂

My niece slept over last night in order for us to be up bright and early for our traditional Christmas shopping.   Because she was here last night we deviated slightly from our routine.

Sampson apparently got tired of waiting for someone to come and help him and he brought his Kong out and threw it at my feet. 🙂

Sampson absolutely adores my niece so he refused to go to bed when Hubby, Delilah and I headed off to dreamland.  I would have thought I’d have a much better sleep without him plastered up against me in the bed, but that wasn’t the case. 

I woke up with an aching back.  I guess my sleep number is adjusted to accommodate an 85 pound lab.

Small Successes

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I wanted to share with you a small success Delilah had last night in our walk around the block.

You may remember there are a couple of dogs contained by an electronic fence at one of the houses we pass when we take our neighborhood walk.

One of the dogs is quite docile and just stands/sits there watching, the other dog loves to run back and forth along the border barking.  This sets Delilah into a fine mood and gets her lunging and barking on the end of her leash trying to get at this dog.

I entice her with treats as I continue to walk but obviously the leash gets taut and I end up pulling on her, which I don’t care for.

 We approach the house on the opposite side of the street and as we do I am ever watchful, when I see the outside light on I know the dog(s) are out. 

Last night I decided to take Delilah on the 30 foot leash so she had a bit of freedom. As we got closer to the house I could see the light was on so I began wrapping the leash around my arm. 

I mentioned to Hubby, “I don’t see a dog.”

Hubby murmured back, “He’s out there, just watching.”

Delilah knows where this house is and the closer we get, the more antsy she gets.  Last night however she was intent on something on the ground and she stopped to piddle directly across from the house.

I had seen the dog though, so I stepped in front of her hoping to block her view. 

I failed. 

I could tell by the look in her eyes that she had seen the dog.  As soon as she finished her business she made to head on over and give a not so friendly hello, but before she could get to the end of the leash (while it was still somewhat loose) I said, “Leave it, it’s ok” and calmly kept walking.

She turned and headed in my direction.

Then she hesitated a second and turned once again to confront her frenemy and one more time I said, “Leave it,” and kept walking. 

Once again she returned to me, but this time she didn’t turn back and we continued our walk without further incident.

This morning Kristine at Rescued Insanity had a post called “Failure Isn’t Always What It Seems” where she shared examples of a failure turning into a success and she asked her readers to share instances where they had done something similar.  I had been planning on sharing this as a blog post anyway and it didn’t dawn on me until I started typing that I had a perfect example here.

If I hadn’t failed in blocking Delilah’s view, she might not have had the opportunity to succeed at making a choice to walk past the other dog.

Following Kristine’s lead I will ask you, have you ever had an instance where a failure turned into a success?  Did you view it that way at the time or did it take you a while (like me) to realize it?

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